Foster Friday Wedding fun!

Last friday we had a new foster experience. Respite care. What is respite care? You might ask. It is a little known, little discussed, greatly needed reality of the "foster world". When you foster you are not allowed to leave the foster children in your care with anyone under the age of 18yrs for 4 or less hours. If you need to be gone longer than that, you need respite care. You need another foster home who is licensed and has the appropriate room in their home. This is much more difficult than you would imagine. There is no available list, you can't find references, you pay for it cash up front, and usually have to go to them, which is sometimes 60-80mi from your home. So, knowing all these things, when our home supervisor called and asked us to give respite to another family we agreed with little reservation. Her name was "Nanna"; she was 5yrs old, and the girls got along most of the weekend. After she was delivered to our door, we settled her in. (side-note) Abi and I are a great team. She addresses the need and I execute the resolution. We drew a deep, hot, bubble bath. Found an extra swim suit. Washed hair. Painted nails. And found four pink party dresses and dress shoes. Then I braided all of our hair, and we hit the wedding scene. My beautiful cousin married her Patrick in an at gallery downtown. The girls and I were so thrilled to be a part of such a special evening! Oh I wish we had gotten a sitter for the boys and David could have come with us, but the girls and I had a great "girlie" night. :-) There was a very narrow alley we walked through to enter the gallery. Waiting for the bride to make her entrance. It was so beautiful! Our placecards, isn't that creative?! We had such a great night! We really enjoyed being together and were so thrilled to celebrate with my sweet cousin. We love you Rachel and Patrick, God bless your marriage and your new family!